Shopper Insights Global Lead

Hero is a global food company, founded in 1886 in Switzerland, specializing in branded nutritional products across the Growing Up and Adult categories. With a portfolio of trusted brands like Corny, Semper, Goodies, Beech-Nut, Organix, and Deliciously Ella, Hero delivers high-quality, great-tasting food rooted in natural goodness. Guided by its mission to “To delight Consumers through honest Goodness in every Bite”. With 4,000 team members worldwide, the company is driven by strong values, high performance, and a commitment to doing the right thing—always, without compromise.

Role Overview

The Shopper Insights Global Lead is responsible for setting the vision, strategy, and execution of shopper insights across markets at Hero group, ensuring the voice of the shopper informs decisions at both global and local levels. Leading a network of local Shopper Insights owners, you will drive capability building, consistency, and best practice sharing while ensuring shopper insights are activated to deliver competitive advantage for our brands and retailer partnerships. You will act as the Shopper Insight expert putting into application your vision, tools and processes, in close partnership with local Sales & Sales Excellence teams. You may travel to, or be located in, Germany, London or Netherlands. The Shopper Insights Global Lead will report functionally to the Group Insights & Analytics Director, with a dotted line reporting to the Sales Excellence Global VP.

Key Responsibilities

• Shopper Insights Organization & Roadmap
  • Define the optimal shopper insights network, in close collaboration with Sales Excellence Global Lead, and identify candidates within existing local teams (part of CAT MAN, Sales Strategy or Sales Excellence, pending local set-up).
  • Define and champion the global Shopper Insights 3-year road-map to establish core competencies, process, organization and key foundational learnings for our food & snacking platforms, ensuring alignment with global category, sales, and sales excellence.
• Capability Building Across the Organization
  • Play a central role in establishing shopper insights capabilities across the organization, embedding shopper-centric thinking into core ways of working.
  • Partner closely with Sales and Sales Excellence functions to co-develop tools, frameworks, and processes that elevate customer engagement and category leadership.
  • Align & deploy standard tools (supplier roster / key methodologies) to ensure best-in-class methodologies used & enable comparison cross markets.
  • Build training programs, toolkits, and thought-leadership sessions that strengthen shopper insight fluency across all teams.
  • Lead, coach, and inspire a network of local Shopper Insights Managers/Experts across key markets.
  • Establish meta-learnings and best-practices to accelerate learning, maximize resources, and build organizational shopper-centricity.
  • Act as shopper Insights lead at your own location (Schwartau), executing the design & delivery of shopper research and activation of shopper insights, in close collaboration with local Sales Excellence and Sales teams.
  • Oversee the design and delivery of global and local research programs (qualitative, quantitative, syndicated, loyalty, e-commerce, and emerging methodologies), either directly leading at your location or through the network of Shopper Insights for other markets.
  • Translate insights into compelling narratives that influence senior stakeholders and retail partners at strategic moments (e.g., joint business planning, portfolio strategy, innovation).
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Partner with senior leaders across Marketing, Sales, Category Development, RGM, and R&D to embed shopper insights into brand plans, innovation roadmaps and RGM strategies.
  • Support category vision development and execution with fact-based shopper narratives that differentiate our snacking platforms / food categories and brands.
• Thought Leadership
  • Monitor macro shopper, retail, and food category trends globally, providing senior leadership with forward-looking perspectives.
  • Champion innovation in research approaches (AI, digital, behavioral science, mobile ethnography etc).

Skills & Qualifications

• 10+ years’ experience in Shopper Insights within major FMCG players (food or beverage preferred).
• Proven track record of influencing senior leadership and driving strategic impact through insights.
• Experience leading and developing dispersed, multicultural teams.
• Deep expertise in shopper and retail data sources (Nielsen, IRI, Kantar, loyalty data, household panels, e-commerce analytics).
• Strong business acumen; ability to connect shopper insights with commercial and strategic priorities.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with presence to engage senior executives and retailers.
• Passion for food trends, shopper behaviour, and the future of retail.

Our culture

At Hero, we believe great companies are built by people who are empowered to make a real impact. We have an open, flexible, and informal way of working, where everyone has a voice in shaping what we do and how we do it. We collaborate with colleagues across our international organisation. With short decision-making lines and a flat structure, ideas move quickly and contributions are recognised. We don’t hire people to follow instructions—we hire people who want to take ownership and make their mark. If you spot an opportunity, you’re encouraged to act on it, and if you’re ambitious, you’ll find the freedom to grow. Creativity, curiosity, and an entrepreneurial mindset are part of everyday life at Hero. We trust our people to drive their own development, support one another, and push boundaries together. Just as importantly, we genuinely enjoy working together and looking out for each other.

We offer a flexible hybrid working model that supports a healthy work–life balance.

Our Values

Our values are at the heart of everything we do. Developed through an inclusive process involving colleagues from across the business, they guide how we work, collaborate, and succeed together. They reflect who we are today and the future we are building:

• Create Wow – We go beyond expectations and strive to make a meaningful impact.
• Everyone Hero – Every individual matters and every contribution counts.
• Nourish Others – We support, inspire, and help each other grow.
• Take Responsibility – We own our actions and outcomes, individually and as a team.

We look forward to receiving your application before the 20th February.